How to make sure your children are safe in your car
Children are the greatest gifts is what every caring parent will tell you and they’ll do anything to keep them safe. Kids these days spend quite a lot of time in their parents’ cars. In this post, we take a look at a few points to ensure that your kids are safe whenever they are inside a car.
1. Seatbelts On All The Time
Seatbelts save lives. And when your kids are sitting in the car, ensure that they’re strapped down in the seats no matter where in the car they’re sitting.
2. Young children should ride in a specialised child seat
Small children, especially infants, should always sit in specialised child seats. Ensure that the child seat is installed properly. For children 2 years and under, ensure that the child seat faces towards the rear as their head and neck muscles aren’t strong enough to support them properly in case of a crash.
3. Kids should ride in the rear seat
Kids, especially those 12 and under should always sit in the rear seat for their own safety. The airbags, which deploy anytime a crash happens, are designed to protect a person with a much bigger body and can seriously injure a child.
4. No kids on the driver’s seat/lap
Parents always want to keep their kids close. However, this can be dangerous for both the kids and parents especially if you put the kid on your lap or on the seat while behind the wheel. Parents, please avoid this at all costs.
5. Avoid driving distracted
If your kids are being fuzzy or are annoyed about something while you’re on the move, bring your car to the side of the road and deal with the issue. Do not let the issue distract you while you’re driving. Multi-tasking is nice, but it is not something that you should do from behind the wheel.
6. Fasten down everything
Ensure that there are no unfastened objects in the car. Any items left loose on the dash can become projectiles in case of a crash. The same thing can be said about any heavy items left loose in the boot. If you have any items left loose in the car, keep them tied down to ensure that the kids and everyone else remain safe.
7. Don’t leave kids unattended in the car
If you have to head out of the car for a few minutes ensure that the kids are never left unattended. Either take the kids with you as it avoids any chance of them getting heatstroke, especially with how hot the car can get especially during the summer months. Also, children are inherently curious and leaving them unsupervised inside the car is a recipe for trouble.
© cartoq.
